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<title>counting my footsteps, praying the floor won’t fall through again by poisonrationalitie</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27202582">counting my footsteps, praying the floor won’t fall through again</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisonrationalitie/pseuds/poisonrationalitie'>poisonrationalitie</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Counting On (TV) RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Introspection, Short One Shot</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 17:49:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>678</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27202582</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisonrationalitie/pseuds/poisonrationalitie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Anna rocks Maryella to sleep. Title from ‘Dear John’ by Taylor Swift</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>counting my footsteps, praying the floor won’t fall through again</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Anna completes her circle, and starts again. It takes six steps to revolve perfectly around the room; one for each baby. The lost one doesn’t count, doesn’t give her anything more, doesn’t get episodes like Lauren’s or Jinger’s. Even her live ones don’t count, not really. <em>The sins of the father. </em>One. She cradles Maryella, clinging to her like a lifeline, proof that she is good and God is good and she’s not a sinner and she’s trying please don’t exile her please don’t leave her <em>please </em>she’s doing everything she can.</p><p> </p><p>Two. He’s out tonight, visiting Jed and Jer, because those terrified little boys who hid behind their sisters from him would certainly want him at their house. She’s stupid, she’s dumb, she’s an idiot, but she knows. She knows. She knows that if she blocks the door again and tries to stop him leaving it won’t just be her who is made to repent. She strokes her baby’s cheek with her thumb.</p><p> </p><p>Three. It will be one of the little ones. Mack is his first and spends far more nights with her aunts than she does in the warehouse and any mark on her will have one of the bigger girls straight to their father. Michael is his first boy and more important and he is only hurt in the attempts to mould him in his father’s image as all people are moulded in the Father’s image. Marcus is derided but never touched. It would almost be okay if it was one of the older ones he screamed at, one of the older ones blamed for letting their mother waste away and go mad. She’s not mad. She’s stupid and dumb and idiotic but she’s not <em>mad, </em>not in any sense. She loves him. He’s her husband. Of course she loves him.</p><p> </p><p>Four. Almost.  She almost left, she almost ran, he almost stopped, he almost swung that fist. But almost is not <em>did</em>, no more than an engagement is a marriage. She’s at the bit of the wall in the nursery where their wedding photo hangs. She remembers the dress and the feel of that ring and the long, long, long, long night that stretched on for a dozen years. How could she not? It was the day she became a Duggar. There was cake and music and a careful kiss and a tear in her dress and a push onto the bed and a flood of half-caught tears.</p><p> </p><p>Five. Nearly a complete revolution. A complete cycle. Like how her parents became grandparents and she, the child, became bride and mother, and now Mack cares for the younger children and soon enough Anna and her husband will start talking in hushed tones to other parents in the way Jim Bob and Michelle and her mother and father did. Each day tumbles into the next like falling dominoes and birthdays whizz past quicker than outbound cars. She can go days without sighting herself in the mirror, but each time that she does, there are more lines and darker bags and the frown is carved deeper into her skin until she thinks it might never go away. She sees Mack every day, however, and watches her eldest daughter turn into her as she turns into her mother and on and on and on.</p><p> </p><p>Six. Maryella’s eyes further droop, but there’s still movement Anna knows comes with being awake. It beckons another walk around the room, her heavy arms still bouncing, bones rattling beneath sundried skin. Her stomach aches, clawing through her insides hunting for its lost lunch and forgotten dinner, both of which have gone cold on the bench, abandoned in favour of mopping puddles and cleaning up toys and vacuuming floors and doing up buttons and bandaging knees. The concrete freezes against her bare feet. A bed squeaks. She adjusts Maryella’s leggings, smoothing down the wrinkles. Another rotation awaits her. Nobody has burst in the room, nobody has died, nobody is hurt. They all sleep soundly, excepting her, but since when does that matter?</p><p> </p><p>She begins again.</p>
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